The article entitled: "Branch news: London & Southern" is in the Enterprise resource planning Articles section of Operations Management Papers area...

ARTICLE DESCRIPTION: If Production is tying you in knots you should have tried this

MORE INFO: Branch news: London & Southern If Production is tying you in knots you should have tried this The incessant ‘beeping’ of fork lift trucks manoeuvring as they queue for their turn to load or unload stores is a familiar sight at less well-run factories. At the EEF (South) offices in Hook on 28 April, the pallets they were carrying were flower pot saucers and the stores were Lego bricks. The ‘beeps’ were provided by the ‘drivers’ – two of the IOM members who were enjoying a night of Business Games, with a difference, as the emphasis was on learning how to run the games rather than just taking part. Everyone had a job to do, but with the chaos that quickly appeared in the first round, many were left idly waiting for components, and customer satisfaction levels plummeted to an all-time low. We quickly switched to the final round just to see how good it could get. Work streamed through the factory and the customer reported 100% satisfaction. If only real life was like that. Patrick Lee and Stuart Barrass from the Manufacturing Advisory Service (SE) coached us through a number of games during the evening, highlighting the learning points, and giving us lots of tips on adapting the games to suit our own work situations. The icebreaker game had the assembled group pair off and then attempt to extricate themselves from string handcuffs which resulted in some very strange poses! The point of the game was that it needed some lateral thinking to come up with the solution. This was also true for another game, played with juggling balls. Some very early gains in performance were not carried through despite excellent team working and some crazy ideas. The evening went all too quickly and it was soon time for the last event of the evening – eating the fabulous buffet laid on by MAS – thanks to them for hosting the evening. Frank Wright, MIOM

PUBLISHER: Institute of Operations Management

Page number: 6 Word count: 350

Vol 30 - No 04 June 2004

The article can be downloaded in full from the publisher's site i.e. the Institute of Operations Management.

Thank you for searching on Operations Management Articles.co.uk for Enterprise resource planning article entitled: Branch news: London & Southern in the Operations Management / Enterprise resource planning Articles and Papers Category.

Business Performance Improvement